About us Our people Researchers and engineers Dr Darren Mao Dr Darren Mao was recently awarded his PhD (co-supervised by the Bionics Institute and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Melbourne). Dr Mao is now working full time in the Translational Hearing Research team led by Professor Colette McKay. Dr Mao’s area of focus for his PhD was developing an objective measure of hearing, by recording responses from individuals’ brains using electrodes placed on their scalp Dr Mao and the team at Bionics Institute have developed a novel method that can automatically set the electrical levels for cochlear implants with the push of a button. Not only can this help the programming of hearing devices in infants, but will also facilitate routine implant adjustment procedures in adults, saving clinicians time and effort. This work has seen translation to a patent, and it is Dr Mao’s hope that one day, this technology will be implemented into a clinical device that benefits cochlear implant recipients. E: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0003-4077-2710 GOOGLE SCHOLAR: Darren Mao “The Bionics Institute has multi-disciplinary expertise along with a great collaborative atmosphere. This allows and promotes engineers, clinicians, researchers and even commercial development experts to exchange their knowledge, an environment that I find myself very excited to be in." – Dr Darren Mao Research projects Infant hearing Programming cochlear implants Recent publications Mao, D., Innes-Brown, H., Petoe, M. A., McKay, C. M., & Wong, Y. T. 2021. Spectral features of cortical auditory evoked potentials inform hearing threshold and intensity percepts in acoustic and electric hearing. Journal of neural engineering, 18(4), 046078. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/ac02db Mao, D., H. Innes-Brown, M. A. Petoe, Y. T. Wong, and C. M. McKay. 2019. Fully objective hearing threshold estimation in cochlear implant users using phase-locking value growth functions. Hearing Research. 377: 24-33. doi: 1016/j.heares.2019.02.013. Peng, F., C. M. McKay, D. Mao, W. Hou, and H. Innes-Brown. 2018. Auditory Brainstem Representation of the Voice Pitch Contours in the Resolved and Unresolved Components of Mandarin Tones. Frontiers in Neuroscience. 12(820). doi: 3389/fnins.2018.00820. Full Text Mao, D., H. Innes-Brown, M. A. Petoe, Y. T. Wong, and C. M. McKay. 2018. Cortical auditory evoked potential time-frequency growth functions for fully objective hearing threshold estimation. Hearing Research. 370: 74-83. doi: 1016/j.heares.2018.09.006. Further information Click here to read Darren's story.